What do you get from the marriage? - China

If guys in China need to get a flat before they can get married, then it may imply that girls can improve their living by the marriage, maybe a more comfortable life.

Then what's the payoff? If the parents-in-law will help the son to buy flat for his new family, then how much involvement they will step into the new family? it's going to be good or bad which depends on the culture and personal preference.

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Restoring gender equilibrium in China
by Tyler Cowen

Internet chat groups have sprang up where women exchange advice on how to conceive girls.

Rising property prices are driving the change, which is expected to be confirmed by China's once-a-decade census that started on Monday, because Chinese families must traditionally buy a flat for a son before he can marry.

"My husband and I don't earn much and I can't imagine how we can buy a flat for a son," says Zhang Aiqin of Pujiang in Zhejiang province.

"And it is not only a flat," says Zhang Yun, a Shanxi province native who lives in Shanghai, alluding to the cost of educating and marrying off a boy. "Sons bring economic pressure...[but] 'a daughter is a warm jacket for a mother' when she is old," she says, quoting an ancient Chinese idiom to illustrate the fact that many urbanised Chinese think daughters are better caregivers.